Chapter by Chapter: Life is good and then you die. Write Your Life. Tell The Whole Truth. Leave Nothing Out.

Remember the time you were homeless for about 6 months? You couch surfed for 3, then moved into a boarding house of unrelated vagabonds worst off than you, all of whom were on some kind of spectrum.. of autism, horniness and hypocritically ingenious, cooking garlic ramen stir-fried folly shit every single night, stinking up the place? The only thing missing was the carrying on of Bill and Nanny Crosby of Lackawanna Blues.. You wanted to leave but you stayed. There was some comfort in the stability of a refrigerator. Filthy as it was. You could not believe it when you finally landed your perfect hard skills albeit temp keeper job, only to be allergic to the dust the electrical crew was kicking up, and the freezing cold air temperature near your cubicle. You kept asking yourself with every complaint, "Do I wanna quit?" The answer was clearly "Hell yes! But I can't." until your misery convinced you otherwise. They didn't reject your unemployment claim, but that was the moment you started smoking again, like Peter Jennings on September 11th. Except your terror was POTUS Trump imposed. If something was going to kill you sooner than WWIII, it might as well be cigarettes you couldn't afford. So now, in your begging and hunger game again, you rip-off fruit from the Whole Foods kiddie take-1 wagon. Having no pot of your own to piss in anymore, you pop squats behind Jack-in-the-Box and shock college girls walking by -into giving up hamburger meat for life. And when one of them dials 9-1-1, you drop everything and run run run! Photo attached of what you left behind.

All I'm trying to say here in this mini fiction is, the power of your homelessness or any other extreme and negative adventure you've experienced in life, is in the details of remembrance. I know you have may have chosen to forget these painful circumstances, and dredging them up without getting the shakes makes it not something you want to share with gladness.

But if you're so inclined to be specific, to share your extraordinary struggle in at least one chapter of your memoir, my writing will give the truth you want to tell, the dignity of a name. Yours.